Commercial food manufacturers strive to deliver improved food products to the consumer to meet a wide variety of consumer preferences. One such consumer preference is the desire to increase the nutritional value of regularly consumed food products such as breads, rolls, buns and other bakery products. The desire for highly nutritive food products must also be balanced by the consumer's preference for organoleptically appealing food products. The commercial food manufacturer is faced with the challenge of providing highly nutritive food products, such as bakery products, which retain acceptable organoleptic properties such as taste, texture, and appearance, and especially those products that can retain the desired organoleptic properties during the shelf life of the food product.
The nutritional value of a food product, therefore, is something that the commercial food manufacturer would want to promote to the consumer through labeling, advertising, and the like. As with other aspects of food labeling, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued regulations regarding the health claims that can be made regarding a food product. Among these regulations are regulations that are specific to the level of nutrients delivered by the food product in order to support the claimed health benefit. In other words, in order for a food product to carry an FDA-approved health claim on the product label or other promotional materials, the food product must consistently deliver a nutrient or a combination of nutrients at defined levels per serving.
Bread is a dietary staple to which many nutritional ingredients have been added. Currently, there are commercially available whole wheat breads meeting the FDA heart health claim requirements regarding whole grain content. Whole wheat contains wheat gluten, and therefore tends to have a less adverse effect on the quality of the bread, particularly on the specific volume and texture of the bread, than non-wheat ingredients. There are also 9- and 12-grain breads, and breads designed to deliver specific nutrients or supplements to meet specific dietary needs, and other similar breads. Although these breads contain nutritive ingredients, the level of a specific nutrient, such as protein or fiber, provided per serving generally falls short of the levels required by the FDA regulations for specific health claim labeling. This is because the high level of nutrients required for making an FDA health claim on a product typically has an adverse effect on the quality of the bakery product, particularly on the specific volume and texture of the bakery product.
Dietary fiber is a nutrient that food manufacturers strive to increase in food products, but which typically has deleterious effects on the food product. Dietary fiber is generally divided into two categories, soluble and insoluble, based on the solubility of the fiber in water at room temperature. Increasing soluble fiber intake improves digestion by providing nutrients to intestinal flora and/or lowering cholesterol. Insoluble fiber promotes overall health by providing indigestible bulk to food products.
However, the addition of high levels of fiber to food products is known to adversely affect the organoleptic properties of food products. High fiber food products can have a dry, tough, chewy, or dense texture, making them less appealing to consumers. In fact, the level of dietary fiber needed to meet an FDA fiber claim in a bakery product is often so high that a dough containing the requisite amount of fiber is simply unprocessable on a commercial manufacturing line, usually because the dough is either too stiff or too plastic as a result of the fiber ingredient added. Therefore, not only are high fiber products difficult to prepare from an organoleptic standpoint, they are difficult to prepare from a commercial manufacturing standpoint as well.
The commercial food manufacturer is therefore faced with the challenge of providing high fiber bakery products that retain acceptable organoleptic properties such as taste, texture, and appearance, and that can readily be made using conventional commercial manufacturing equipment and processes.